Hong Kong Travels: Butao Ramen

Right before our actual dinner with the family, my cool aunt and I snuck out to a tiny little ramen shop tucked away in the streets of Causeway Bay. I insisted on coming here because at the time the ramen shop was one of their latest openings and trends! So why not check out the hype while in town? 🙂

The ramen shop is famous for its rich flavor slow-cooked pork bone soup.We arrived at Butao Ramen around 4:30 pm and waited in line for approximately 20 minutes – not too bad.

Outside the ramen shop, they have pictures and descriptions of each soup base. From left to right: Butao King, Black King, Red King, Green King

Each of us in line were given an order form that lets you select soup base, how light / strong you prefer the soup base to be, extra pork, level of spiciness and other additional toppings. Someone would then go through the order with you to double check and then collect the sheet.

After waiting for a little bit more – we were finally seated. The shop itself had probably less than 10 circular tables. We were seated at a table in the back with 2 other groups of people we did not know – which is expected.

A display of their different soup based ramens / combinations

Butao King($80 HKD / $12 CAD)

The soup base was very aromatic. I believe the other toppings added to the bowl of ramen was an essential part as it adds complexity and a sense of freshness in the otherwise heavy pork bone broth

The 2- 3 slices of thin pork itself was lean – little to no fatty in the pork at all which is I guess healthier overall!

The portion size is decent for myself – some people may agree / disagree depending on how much you regularly eat. My cousin whom visited Butao King before me highly suggested I order 2 bowls. – One bowl should be quite sufficient for most people (?)

In terms of the noodles here, they are straight and thinner noodles then what I’m used to. The noodles were leaning towards the softer side which I prefer because it sits better in your stomach.

This is my aunt’s bowl of Butao King ramen – She had added a bit of spicy powder to her bowl of ramen. There were some condiments placed on the table for customers which included sesame, fruit vinegar, garlic and three different types of preserved turnip and bamboo shoots.

All in all, I enjoyed my bowl of ramen – the noodles and soup itself seemed “healthier” in the sense that there was no fat in the pork and the soup had little to no oil. The portions I thought were decent for an individual – but if you’re someone like my cousin who eats a lot then perhaps two bowl will finish you off! I guess the only thing I really didn’t like was how crammed we were – I understand its HK and everywhere you go – you’ll most likely be sharing a table with randoms – but this time it was a different kind of squishiness that was almost unbearable.